Chiropractors have the highest student loan default rates of any healthcare profession.

(If you don't believe me, just follow the links on this page.)

The average chiropractor (DC) graduates with over $100,000 in student loan debt, yet can usually make only around $30,000 as an associate doctor. This figure often includes no health insurance, retirement, vacation, or other benefits.

As an associate doctor, your main job will be to RECRUIT PATIENTS, which basically means to indoctrinate them into the idea that they need to come to your office three times a week for the rest of their lives.

This is accomplished by scaring patients and telling them they have a fake lesion called a subluxation. This is, of course, pure quackery. Only chiropractors believe that subluxations exist. No other doctor or scientist has ever found one.

In reality, you are just cracking the joints of a patient's back and your treatment can have no effect on health (other than maybe easing some minor back pain). There is no evidence that getting joints cracked regularly is good -- it just costs the patient extra money and may even cause ligament laxity.

Many modern chiros will tell you that they don't treat subluxations and that they are evidence based. Don't fall for this one. If chiropractic was truly "evidence based", it wouldn't even need to exist as a profession since physical therapists and physicians can crack joints for back pain.

Some chiropractors claim they can help all kinds of things which they have no business treating. Some claim they can treat diabetes, ADD, hormone problems, depression, even cancer... just by cracking someone's joints.

The cost of chiropractic college is high. Over $80,000 for just tuition. This does not include books, equipment, very expensive licensing exams, etc., -- not to mention the years of lost wages while you are a full time student.

Students will often hear reports of chiropractors making big bucks. This is usually false data that is coming from chiropractic sources. The reality for new grads is that it is almost impossible to open up your own clinic, and the student loan default rate for chiropractors is extremely high.

Before you go into serious debt to become a chiropractor, please research the links provided on the page and seriously consider the information presented. You may avoid a poor choice that will hurt you for years to come in the form of lost time and a huge debt burden.

"Chiropractor" has been voted Most Overrated Career by U.S. News & World Report magazine for 2007.

Click HERE for the full story

According to the magazine: "Some chiropractors think their discipline can cure everything from headaches to sciatica, asthma to premenstrual syndrome. But the Federal Trade Commission only allows chiropractors to claim they can treat low back pain. And even so, research shows that mainstream treatments for lower back pain are equally effective. Many chiropractors also devote considerable time to marketing-in part to pay back the cost of chiropractic school, usually over $100,000."

For a profession that claims to be fairly safe, there sure are a LOT of groups of injured patients.

Check out this list of websites and organizations started by patients who were injured by chiropractic treatment:

Click HERE to see list

If you become a chiropractor, there is a very real possibility that you will hurt someone. Chiropractors mainly hurt people due to their lack of training in diagnosis (they try to treat critical emergency cases with useless chiro treatments).

But sometimes they stroke people out by doing unnecessary neck manipulations.

Buyer Beware!

#1 -- Email this lens to a friend, vote on this lens, or leave comments in our guestbook (below).

#2 -- Post VIDEOS on Youtube.
Until recently, Youtube was totally overrun with chiropractic quackery. This gave a false sense of legitimacy to pseudoscience and put patients and students at risk.

Please continue to post news segments (if you have permission) about injured chiropractic patients, chiropractic student loan defaults, chiropractors getting arrested for fraud advertising, etc.

And if you have video production skills, consider creating a short video. It can even be just a "slideshow" with research, facts, or links to where consumers can go for more information. If you need links to research to back-up what you say, please email me and I will be glad to help.

Your efforts could help prevent someone getting swindled by a chiropractor or even having a stroke from an unnecessary manipulation. Thanks!